Retail Giant Tesco Gets Into The Movie Business
from the alternative-means dept
Even as the movie business has had yet another record breaking year at the box office, we still hear claims from Hollywood that online downloading of unauthorized movies is going to kill the movie business. And yet, where there's demand, new business models will be created. ethorad points us to the news that UK retail giant Tesco is getting into the business of producing movies itself based on the books of some very famous authors. The movies will be direct-to-DVD and direct-to-the-internet, but the idea is for Tesco to use these movies to generate more traffic to their stores (both online and off). In fact, if you look at the retail business, music and movies have long been used as a loss leader of sorts, to drive traffic to get them to buy other, much higher margin, goods. This is really an extension of that, but all the way to the point of helping to fund the production of the movie itself. Also, while it will have a window of exclusivity at the beginning, it sounds like Tesco is quite open to other stores selling the movie as well. Either way, it's interesting to see other third parties recognize that they benefit from having movies made, and thus are willing to partially fund the production of those movies.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: funding, loss leader, marketing, movies, promotion
Companies: tesco
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Hollywood is stuffed
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Re: Uk supermarkets
They also have a history of disliking artificial monopolies and trying to manouevre around them (not always with ultimate success admittedly). This looks like another go at the same idea.
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You may not like them - but lots of people buy them so they can't be really bad. They are very profitable or the supermarket wouldn't bother with them.
Not liking them probably says more about you than about the products.
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so, yeah, they can't be terrible, but they can easily be 'not great'.
which, admittedly, when it comes to movies, seems like it would be a step up half the time...
and the difference between 'great! too bad i can't afford it' and 'well, it's ok... hey, i can actually afford this!' for the same (general) product is a big one...
also: i am protesting against the existence of capital letters today. they have aggravated me one too many times :)
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Nope.. 'Tesco brand' or '[Name your supermarket] brand' are brand name foods.. just rebranded..
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Yeah, some things might cost more and be of actual lower quality in the supermarket. But if you depend on brand name alone to tell you quality, you're a fool and you're being robbed every time you shop.
As for this idea, it's a little strange but might be workable. British movie productions are usually very low budget compared to Hollywood fare, so they should be OK if they have someone capable of picking talent. Maybe not the next Harry Potter, but the lineup mentioned is starting with a Jackie Collins adaptation so that's hardly the market they'll be going for anyway. Although, ironically, the company seems to have been set up by ex-New Line staff, presumably after the disastrous reception of The Golden Compass put the last nail into that coffin.
Get a reasonable quality movie on the shelves for a reasonable price, let everyone know that you can't buy it anywhere except Tesco and people will buy it. I'd not watch the Collins myself, but I'm personally interested as to what the Philip Pullman and Karin Slaughter adaptations would be...
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And we all know that you don't have to waste millions and millions to make a good movie (Paranormal Activity etc.).
Also, I bet you that Tesco "get it" more than Hollywood does.
Running scared?
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